Julie Meadows Blogs About Working for Max

 A reader suggested I read this bit from www.juliemeadows.com

I was moved by it, Julie is very honest about her feelings and I found her to be both intelligent and insightful,  I asked her permission to repost it here and it was granted. I inquired about her writing for mikesouth.com and was extraordinarily pleased when she accepted.  Look for a press release with more info about this.

So please welcome my newest contributor Julie Meadows

How can anyone hate women? That doesn’t even make any sense. One woman – because she stole the last box of Cheez-Its from your cart when you weren’t looking – okay. That kind of hate, I get. It flares up but it doesn’t fester. It goes away. I do that in my car all the time. But the entire group of women? It doesn’t make any sense. Their very natures are gentle. Nagging is not a crime, yelling and crying because you’re on your period is not a crime. Women are only as screwy as the rest of the members of their society.

And hating sex workers is just the morbid icing on the cake. You are really kicking a woman while she’s down if you throw your anger and pity at her for selling her body. She’s unprotected, the most exposed and exploited female. She doesn’t deserve your anger and I can guess she doesn’t want your pity. What’s the point in hating a woman like that? Because she is having sex with your man (who’s looking for it, by the way)? Because someone broke your heart? Because women are so stingy with their sex they’d make you pay for it? Because you are afraid of identifying with her? The woman is trying to make a living. Yes, it’s illegal, but it shouldn’t be illegal. As long as there are men there will always be a money exchange for sex. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t have to promote hate and hate crimes because you don’t agree. Most of these fragile creatures don’t even stand up for themselves because they can’t endure the witch hunt. No one wants to be burned at the stake for trying to make a dime.

   Paul Little. Paul was little. He had little teeth and little beady eyes. I met him and worked for him in 1998. And I read that he was convicted on obscenity charges, too. I read some very passionate claims that he was “an artist” and “only making quality porn”. I couldn’t help but observe that these passionate claims seemed to come from men who, I am guessing, do not have sisters, wives or girlfriends who worked for “Max Hardcore”. Look, I don’t know what he deserves or whether or not the ruling was right. It may be very unfair and if that is true then he suffers the same fate many unjustly tried people face every day, and that is unfortunate. All I have is one isolated experience that I have been planning to write about for some time because of the level of hate in that particular man against women. It is a sickness and appears to be one of our country’s favorite pastimes. Intense love and intense hate for our women, especially our attractive women. You might as well just randomly kick dogs and children, too.

I have suffered naivety repeatedly in my life. My encounters with my own naivety have nearly killed me, because the truth is I’m too sensitive to understand the ignorance of man. I didn’t know anything about porn. I sincerely thought, ‘Oh, how many people must adore the female in an industry such as this! It would have to be full of worshipping people because the female is so thoroughly exposed in all her beauty and power and glory!’ The part that chips away at my sensitivities each time, is that there is no flaw in my logic. It’s just that my simple reasoning is lost in a sea of prevailing emotional opinion. Balance in all things; this equals that; of course prejudice is ridiculous, have you ever met every single African-American person to know you hate them? My logic is correct! Further emotional death comes from trying to adapt. My Aquarian mind catalogs it as a lesson learned, tries to move on, but my feelings have been dented. The prejudices and harsh realities are like little nails in my emotional coffin until my sensibilities are so raped and I am stripped of so much that I must battle my own hate, which is just the byproduct of my continued survival. It is a dangerous place in my mind. I am jealous of people who are raised with these realities taught to them. I come from a place where Santa Clause is real and serious questions are avoided. There is so much I could have accomplished if I wasn’t only armed with my ideals. It’s a feeble armor. Truth should have been in there somewhere.

I met Paul on a summer day in September 1998. I had been warned to never work for him, but I had also been told I could trust my agent – the only agent back then – Jim South. They both called me.

“No, Jim. I can’t work for him because I’ve been told not to. I’m told he is a horrible person.”

“He’s gotten a lot better.”

He’s gotten a lot better?

“No.”

“Just talk to him. You can ask him whatever you want.”

“Fine.” Paul called…

“I am told you are twisted and I am just into good old-fashioned sex, so I can’t work for you.” I’m from Texas, by the way. The land of eternally sweet women where we say things like ‘good old-fashioned sex’.

He chuckled. “Me too!”

I asked my husband and he said to just give it a shot. I shouldn’t have asked him anything. I never did, anyway. I severely underrate my instincts, at times.

I talked to the assistant and he wanted me to meet him away from Paul’s house and to leave my car in a public place.

“I’m not going to leave my car anywhere. Why would I do that?”

“Well, because there are a lot of turns and it can be confusing.”

Are you kidding me? I am proud to come from a simple place. There is no confusion when you know you’re mind, and I have never not been able to deal with the shifty porn producer, even though my naivety is epic.

“Listen. It’s simple. I am twenty-four-years-old, I have been driving and navigating streets and traffic for some time. I have never been unable to read street signs to get anywhere I need to go. I have no intention of driving my car only so far and then leaving it somewhere. How absolutely stupid would I be if I did that? My car will be near me at all times, or there is no job. I don’t need to work for him.”

I am thankful for my pride. I still understand to this day that death is a better fate than selling one’s soul. I never sold mine, though I did rent it out. Even as a high-paid escort I chanted this mantra in the back of my mind, always – ‘I don’t have to do anything. I’d rather my family and I live in poverty than let anyone just do whatever they want to me. I can walk away. I can always walk away.’ That mantra has saved me more times than I care to count, which is why I never made the kind of money I could have. I paid the bills, though. We knew poverty, and poverty is no fun.

“Okay, but you’ll still have to follow me up.”

“Fine. Then I’ll write down the directions as I go.” And I did.

His was a three story home. It was quite lovely. Two men grabbed my things and escorted me to an elevator and then up to the top floor to meet with Paul.

We deposited my things into a dark bedroom and a woman came stumbling out of the adjoining bathroom. She had dark rings around her eyes and she looked only half alive. She came right up to me with her heavily lidded eyes and said, “Hey, it’ll be a breeze,” then whispering, “He’s got a little dick.” She walked out. It didn’t make me feel any better.

   I then went across the hall to his office, a small room where Paul sat behind a small desk while two of his employess stood behind me.

Paul smiled, which is scary. He has little sharp teeth and nothing behind his eyes. I wasn’t scared, per se, but he did creep me out.

“Well, I’m going to show you a video that outlines what I like to do in my scenes.”

I waited as he readied the tape.

Everyone who knows him knows he has a pedophile fetish. I didn’t, but I was finding out. He likes for the models to dress up as little girls. My stomach lurched.

He stopped during the blowjob scene to really emphasize how important it was that I be able to produce enough bile to blow bubbles. Stomach lurching big time now. Then came the speculum thing, which is what gynecologists use to open a woman up. And vomit.

I didn’t vomit. I wanted to, but I didn’t.

“And this is your idea of good old-fashioned sex…” It wasn’t a question.

It is my fault that my naivety has led me into so many trap situations. I connect with strange people. They’re interesting. Puzzles, if you will. I love puzzles and stupidly step into puddle after terrible puddle, with interesting stories, but incredible regret sometimes. Not all strange people are bad or ill-intentioned, but I once let myself get lured into a man’s house. I knew him so I thought it was okay. I was able to talk my way out of his forcing me to do anything. Sometime I’ll write about it, but not now. The process is always this, ‘Lydia….you dumb-ass! You know you deserve anything that happens to you right now, right? Where is your sense? How could you let this happen?’ And then I proceed to reason and sway, gently, because even neurotic people just want someone to ‘get them’. I go into a comical monolgue about how the weather, sill things, I start problem-solving, complimenting, and it’s not fake. I really sympathize at that moment. I run when I get the chance, but I do sympathize. I am genuine that way.

But this was business and I was livid. Business is supposed to be easier because it’s cut and dry. “You lied to me. I can’t do any of that.”

He never stopped smiling. That strange and psychotic, snaggle-toothed smile was frozen on his face. “This is what the fans want to see.”

“You lied to me. I can’t do any of that because I told you I just have straight sex. I made myself clear. This is not what I do.”

He kept going. He was not getting it.

“The blowjob is clearly a for-your-pleasure-only thing. I don’t do anything that doesn’t please me. What would the point be in that? I have reciprocal sex, I don’t do dominate/submissive scenes, I have never misled anyone about that. So, no! There is no way you are going to use a speculum on me. Do you have a document that shows you are certified to use that? Of course you don’t. I only let gynecologists use those because it’s their job to use it.”

I was tired. I had only, so far, spoken with the guy and I was exhausted. I should have left, but I rationalized that I was already there.

“I’m here, so I will do this ridiculous job, but I’m not doing any of what you just showed me.”

I’ve had worse scene experiences, quite frankly. I was prepared for his weirdness. The scenes that were really horrific came out of left field and I had no warning. I spent most of the scene yelling at him.

He stopped to eat halfway through the shoot.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“Do you want something to eat?”

“You really think I’d trust you giving me anything from your kitchen. Are you high? Fuck no. And hurry up or I’m just going to leave.”

“Get on the pool table like this.”

“No. You get on the pool table like this. Shut up. I said shut up and be still.”

I used my anger to extract my revenge, although he seemed to like it. I can’t ell you how many times I have taken a man’s meanness and turned it on him and gotten a pleasant reception. Weird.

The end finally came and I demanded an extra hundred dollars for having to put up with him. One of his guys helped me with my things and said, “That was great. You’re going to go far.”

And I did. I went far, far, far away from there! 

It is difficult to have compassion for people who hate women. People who want to exloit them and even go so far as punishing them for allowing themselves to be exploited, which is only further exploitation and accomplishes nothing positive, but I suppose I do feel a little compassion for Paul Little. Something happened to him to make him that way. A woman did something to make him that way. That’s basic psychology. But, to me, the difference between an infant and a mature adult is one’s ability to sensibly identify where the disfunction comes from, own it and learn to address it in a healthy way as opposed to lashing out at an entire group of people because you’ve been hurt and programmed. Paul always made a beeline for me when we’d see each other at shows and events, and he’d say, “Julie Meadows! How are you? You should work for me, again,” to which I’d say, “Paul! I’m fine, thanks. Go fuck yourself.” He’d smile, but that’s because he always smiled that weird, soulless, snaggle-toothed smile. I sympathize because I have issues, too. For that I sympathize, I really do. I am working on mine, though. I wonder if he’s working on his…